Her Royal Highness (Royals #2)(41)

“The provenance of the trauma isn’t that important,” she says airily, and I can’t help the giggle that explodes out of my mouth.

“The ‘provenance of the trauma’? Okay, seriously, who talks like that?”

But then I remember that’s kind of a stupid question. Who talks like that? Princesses, of course. Royalty. Which is what Flora is, no matter how . . . normal she looks sitting there in her jammies.

Getting up from the bed, she walks over to the dresser and tugs at that strip of tape separating my rock collection from her fancy candles.

“There,” she says, balling up the tape and tossing it in the bin. “A new start.”

I’m not sure something as simple as getting rid of a piece of tape can be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but I still nod.

“A new start.”





CHAPTER 22





As far as punishments go, it definitely could have been worse. I mean, I’m not sure they could put us in the stocks or anything—me, maybe, but definitely not Flora—but who knows what sort of weird stuff they could come up with here in the Highlands? We could be forced to tend sheep or throw heavy rocks off fields or something. Okay, the rocks thing might not be so bad for me, but still.

So yeah, laundry duty seems a small price to pay for everything that happened during the Challenge.

Flora disagrees.

“This is barbaric,” she says, her perfect nose wrinkling as she hauls an armful of wet sheets out of the washer. “Practically medieval.”

The laundry room is down in what I guess was once the cellar or maybe where they kept uppity women back in the day, the stone floors uneven underfoot, and the light coming through the ancient windows watery and gray. It’s raining. Again.

“History is my second-favorite subject,” I say as I dump a cupful of strong-smelling detergent into the other washer. “And I’m fairly sure I don’t remember any mentions of fancy washing machines from the medieval period, but I guess I could be wrong?”

Flora shoots me a look at that. Her hair is up in a ponytail, but a few strands have escaped to curl around her face in the humidity of the laundry room. Little beads of sweat dot her forehead, too, but it strikes me that even down here, in the cellar, doing literal drudgery, there’s no mistaking Flora for anything but a princess.

“No one likes a smart-arse, Quint,” she says, but there’s a little smile curling there at the corner of her lips.

And maybe I smile back a little bit even as I say, “You know, this habit of calling me by my last name makes me sound like your servant.”

Flora hoots at that, slamming the dryer shut and twisting the dials on top. “Oh god, what a rubbish servant you’d make,” she says as the dryer begins to rumble and shake. “You’d probably spill tea on me just for your own twisted pleasure.”

I grin now, making my way over to the long low table in the middle of the room, where baskets of scratchy towels wait to be folded. “Actually, when I’m done with school here, I might apply for the job. Just commit myself to a lifelong scheme of revenge against you for what happened during the Challenge.”

I’m joking, but Flora’s smile dims a little as she comes to join me at the table. When she reaches out to pick up a towel, I notice that her manicure is chipped, two nails ragged like she’s been chewing on them.

Princess Flora, a nail biter? Who would’ve guessed?

“I am sorry about that,” she says at last, then looks over at me. “Truly.”

Clearing my throat, I shrug. I don’t like a sincere Flora. A flighty, pain-in-the-ass Flora is so much easier to deal with. “I know you are,” I say. “And we obviously didn’t die, so that’s a bonus.”

“We perhaps died, because this certainly feels like hell, or, at the very least, purgatory,” Flora counters, trying to fold a towel. Mostly she’s just balling it up, and with a sigh, I take it out of her hands.

“You might have a point, since ‘Teach a Princess How to Do Laundry’ absolutely feels like some kind of punishment from the gods.”

Flora rolls her eyes. “Oh, poor put-upon Quint,” she says, and I hold up one finger.

“No, we’re going to do this right. Observe.”

I pick up the towel, shaking it out and holding it by two corners. “First things first—we hold the towel like this. Then we bring these two corners together.”

I show her, and she picks up another towel, mimicking my movements. I have no idea if she actually doesn’t know how to fold a towel, or if she’s just going along with this because it’s a fun distraction from laundry, but in any case, she dutifully goes through the same motions I do until we both have a little square of towel in front of us on the table.

“Et voilà,” I say with a flourish, then grab another towel off the pile and toss it to her. “Now let’s see if the student has learned.”

Cutting me a look, Flora picks up another towel, snapping it out in front of her. “It’s hardly rocket science, Quint.”

She then proceeds to completely bungle folding the towel. Like, I can’t even describe what she does because it defies all laws of god and man, and also towels, and I laugh, shaking my head and walking over to her.

“Oh my god, Your Royal Highness,” I tease. “You are a royal disaster.”